Captain Planet & The Rainbow Flag
by The Orange Monkey
Summary: Can the Planeteers stop an attempt to force conformity on the entire planet?


Under the deep cover of night, a shadowy figure dressed in black snuck his way into the Xenox technology complex. Dressed entirely in black, the figure appeared to become almost invisible as it worked his way into the complex, deftly using the shadows and darkness as camoflauge and avoiding the notice of all of the security officials that were watching the building. As he approached the main doorway, he gave it a strong kick. The door bent inwards, but did not break. A second kick rectified this, knocking the door to the ground. As the shadowed man walked into the building, the security alarm began to go off, alerting the guards that there was a breach. As they ran towards the entrance, the shadowed man began to run as well, travelling at break-neck speed into the complex. By the time the guards had caught up with him, he had already found the room that he had been looking for. It was a relatively empty room, with only a table in it, and a small locked box on top of the table. "Okay, freeze!" one of the guards yelled, unholstering his gun. The shadowed man did not even turn around, and began to place the locked box inside a knapsack that he had brought with him.

"I say again, freeze!" the guard said, nervous tension in his voice. "You are illegally on the private property of a corporation working on a defense contract for the federal government. Under the US PATRIOT Act, if you do not verbally surrender yourself to my custody immediately, I am authorized to open fire on you."

The shadow man again said nothing, covertly pressing a small button on his watch. A second later, shots rang out from the guns of the security guards. They passed harmlessly through the man, who had suddenly become intangible. As the shocked guards tried to process this, the shadow man turned around, revealing a stun gun that he had pulled out of his knapsack. With lightning-quick speed, he charged at the security guards, stunning all of them into submission before they had a chance to react.

Hours later, the shadowed man arrived in a dark, abandoned warehouse, where an old man waited for him. "Did you accomplish the mission?" the old man asked. Without a word of response, the thief unveiled the box he had taken from Xenox, and opened it. Inside was a long glass rod, which emanated a greenish-blue hue. "Excellent," the old man said. "Now there is nothing left to stop me."

The next morning, four of the Planeeteers walked through an inner-city neighbourhood, collecting trash from the streets and disposing of it properly. "God, half of this stuff is recyclable or compostable!" Gi said as she pulled yet another cardboard box out of a dumpster. "Will these people never learn?"

"Cut them some slack, Gi," Wheeler said. "People in this neighbourhood have other things to worry about."

"But Wheeler, what could be more important than saving the planet?" asked the ever-chipper Ma-Ti.

"Well, having a roof over your head, and a stable source of income, things like that," Wheeler explained.

"Hey, does anyone know where Kwame is?" Linka asked, trying to change the subject.

"He said that he had to go to Boston," Gi said. "He left me his cell phone number in case of an emergency. He said that he should be back tomorrow."

Meanwhile, in Boston, a wedding was taking place at a small church in the north end of the city. This was not a regular wedding, however, and as a result the eyes of the world were centred around it.

"Do you, Nathan," asked the minister, "take Stephen to be your lawfully wedded spouse, to have and to hold, in better and in worse, for as long as you both shall live?"

"I do," Nathan answered.

"Stephen, do you do the same?" the minister asked again.

Before Stephen could give his response, a bright greenish-blue light flooded the sky, giving all of the wedding guests dehabilitating headaches for several seconds. After a few seconds had transpired, the headaches and the light both subsided. While the guests viewed this as an interesting phenomenon, most of them did not give it any extra thought. Kwame Burton, however, knew that the issue needed further investigation. Especially with what happened next.

"Stephen, do you take Nathan to be your spouse?" the minister asked again.

"Oh, god no!" Stephen yelled, pulling away. "Two guys getting married? What kind of sick joke is this?"

Upon hearing that, Kwame pulled out his cell phone and immediately started to dial home.

"Okay, that was just Kwame calling from Boston," Gi said as she hung up the phone.

"What's going on in old Beantown?" Wheeler asked. "Did they have the same light show we just saw here?"

"That's why Kwame wants us to go," Gi explained, "he said that something strange is happening there."

An hour later, the Planeteer's high-speed transport had arrived in Boston. Kwame was already waiting for them on the heli-pad when they arrived.

"Kwame!" Wheeler called out from the transport. "What's up? What are you doing here in Boston, anyways?"

"I was actually here for personal reasons," Kwame explained. "I was at a wedding. Two old friends of mine were getting married."

"Yeah? Wasn't an old girlfriend or anything, was it?"

"No, most definitely not," Kwame explained with a chuckle.

"Please, Kwame, I love weddings. You must tell me all about this one! What was the bride wearing?" Linka asked.

"Actually, Linka, there was no bride," Kwame explained. "It was to be a same-sex marriage. My friends Nathan and Stephen were getting married."

"Two guys? Is that even, like, legal?" Wheeler asked.

"I assure you it is," Kwame said, a lit annoyed at the question. "It was to be the first same-sex marriage this church performed. But, after the sky changed colour, the strangest thing has happened. Neither of them shows any interest in the other any more!"

"They no longer want to get married?" Linka asked. "Kwame, that is such good news! They saw the light, and now can have normal lives!"

"Linka, are you mad?" Kwame asked. "These two were in love. I think that the strange lights had something to do with this. Someone may be trying to turn all of the homosexuals in the world straight! We have to do something about it!"

"Would that really be so bad? Kwame, our job is to protect the environment from evil, not to justify any kind of alternative lifestyle!"

"Whoa, Linka, calm down," Wheeler said. "I know where you're coming from - being around gay people always makes me feel a little uncomfortable. But that doesn't mean they don't have a right to exist!"

"I would say also, to both of you, that if you have a problem with gay people, that you're the ones with the problem!" Ma-Ti interjected, obviously hurt by the conflict his teammates were having.

"Okay fine," Linka relented, "we will do what we can to help your friends. But where can we start?"

"I might be able to help," Ma-Ti said. "With my Heart powers!" Ma-Ti focused in on his ring, using his powers to scan the area. "The ill will it would take to destroy a marriage," he explained, "would leave a stain on one's heart. I should be able to find that." Finally, after a few minutes, he had some results. "I've been able to track him. We have to get back into the transport, so that we can get to him as fast as possible!"

After a quick ride in the transport, the Planeteers arrived at their location; an abandoned warehouse in the south side of Boston. "This is it!" Ma-Ti explained. "This is where those lights emanated from!" As they left the transport, the Planeteers found both both the old man and his shadowed warrior waiting for them.

"Hey you!" Wheeler cried. "Are you the one responsible for affecting the minds of those homosexuals Kwame knows?"

"Not just them," the old man explained, "but the mind of every homosexual living around the world! Mwahahahaha!"

"Not for long," Wheeler said, running at the deranged scientist, swinging at him. Before he could connect, however, the shadow was on him, kicking him in the face. "You'll pay for that!" the young man said, fire leaping from his planet ring. The shadow easily dodged the flames, though, frustrating Wheeler immensely.

"Wheeler, keep that up and you will kill us all, comrade," Linka said. "I shall help. Wind!" At Linka's command, hurricane force winds bore down on the shadow, slowing him down. It was then that Wheeler finally connected, his flames coating the shadow and setting him ablaze.

"Let me help with that," Gi said, calling up the dark waters of the Boston harbour, which doused both the flames and the man of shadow. "He won't be any more threat to us."

Kwame, meanwhile, was keeping the old man busy with some localized earthquakes beneath his feet. "Now, tell us how to under the damage you've done, old man, and we won't dump you into the harbour," Kwame said in a threatening voice.

"It can't be done!" the man explained. "I designed the machine so that it could never be reversed!"

"He's telling the truth, my friend," Ma-Ti explained, putting his hand on his friend's shoulder. "We can't undo his mind-control experiment."

"Maybe Captain Planet can help?" Gi said, and the five youngsters used the energies in their rings to call up the supernatural Captain. Without a word, Captain Planet picked up the doctor's device, and funnelled his own energies through it, sending out another blast of light identical to the one that they had seen earlier. "That should do it," the Captain said. "Everyone should be back to their normal state again. With that, his molecules dispersed, returning to the rings of the Planeeteers.

"Is this what you want?" the old man asked, "for everyone on the planet to become gay?"

"Not at all," Kwame said.

"We want everyone to be allowed to be themselves," Wheeler continued.

"Because diversity is essential for evolution and development to occur," Gi added.

"Without development, we are left to only stagnate," Ma-Ti said.

"And stagnation leads only to death," Linka finished.

With that, the five Planeeteers smashed the doctor's 'hetero-ray' and left.


End file.
